


Mouth

by 852_Prospect_Archivist



Category: The Sentinel
Genre: First Times, M/M, Other: See Story Notes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-10
Updated: 2013-05-10
Packaged: 2017-12-11 07:06:03
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,538
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/795242
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/852_Prospect_Archivist/pseuds/852_Prospect_Archivist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Mouth, an alternating POV.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Mouth

## Mouth

by Spyke

Author's website:  <http://www.geocities.com/spyke_raven>

None of the characters referred to here were created or syndicated by me.

Thanks to the SenseXAngst list for inspiring this. I needed it.

Warnings: angst, m/m, m/f, alternating points of view, experimental. Most cliched thing I've ever written, still not your average first time. I think.

* * *

The teabag exploded in the cup, releasing a flood of peppery granules that bobbed up and down in swirls of Brownian motion. Anyone he kissed would feel them gritty against his tongue, could press them into the soft inner flesh of his cheek, rolling and savoring them as they blended into taste. 

Blair stirred his tea silently, blowing on it to cool before he sipped. 

It was raining outside, jasmine-oolong merged with the smells of wet concrete and the chill of wind. Tea leaves washed against his mouth as he drained the cup and wondered if he should make another. 

He waited instead, empty cup in hand, shivering under three flannel shirts, none of them his. 

His mouth tasted empty. And it was cold, waiting. 

He should never have opened his mouth. 

\-- 

Her mouth was a slash of red in parched white skin; her hair close-cropped and incongruously healthy against the pallor. 

Carolyn. Afraid. 

Jim remembered that look from surviving the Switchman, and when she'd thought he wouldn't make it back from Brackett's game. He remembered the last time he'd seen it, in a fancy restaurant saying her goodbyes to him. 

Carolyn - wife, lover, friend, competitor. Gracefully ceding her territory to him. 

Why? He'd asked. Why are you leaving? 

Two reasons, she'd said. One, I can't do my job if you won't tell me what your edge is. 

My edge, he'd repeated. She'd firmed her lips, stark red. 

Two. 

Carolyn... 

_Two_. 

He'd waited, holding his glass. Waiting for her to speak. Her eyes had been opaque as she'd told him the truth. 

I can't afford to do this again. 

Do what? 

The stem of glass had felt fragile in his hand, waiting to be snapped. He'd relaxed his hand. Ignoring her questions like he always did. Not knowing what else to say - 

Fall in love with you. Again. 

-as she gave him the truth like she always did. He hadn't known what to say. 

She'd waited for him to speak. 

When it was too late, he'd tried an aborted 'Carolyn!...' as she called for the check, lips pinched, skin drawn high and angry against her cheekbones. Mouth not trembling in that vivid spike of red he knew was her courage color, the one she wore for special occasions. 

He remembered them all. Her first citation. His first cop of the year award. The dress she'd worn, the one he'd peeled off her skin, her mouth trembling against his, the lipstick smeared against her cheek as his thumb rubbed her lips, feeling her breath. 

Jim watched her come down the stairs of her house, shaking ever so slightly but mind made up. Lips made up too, in courage red so she could say the words she needed to. What neither of them had ever really wanted her to say. 

"I think you should leave." 

He nodded, wanting this time at least to have something to say. He found it. Easily. 

"You're beautiful," Jim said. "You always were." 

She stiffened and lifted her head ever so slightly. 

"But not for you, Jim." She managed a smile. "I really think you should go now." 

He left, carrying the memory of her teeth biting into her lower lip, her smile rock-steady as could be, watching him leave her. Again. 

It was raining as he left. 

\-- 

It seemed like the rain would never stop. The clouds had gathered the night Jim got on the flight to 'Frisco. Blair bet it was sunny there. 

Not that he knew. Not that he'd received a phone call or an email or anything from anyone. 

He should have kept his mouth shut. He should never have started the... conversation. 

\-- 

He should never have opened his mouth. 

\-- 

"Look, it's not that I don't understand about the age thing catching up with you - " 

"What age thing?" 

"Please. You're pushing forty, you're feeling the need for a settled home environment, you're looking for that special someone? I mean, I'm with you there, I feel your need," 

"You do _not_ feel my need, Sandburg. I do not have a need for you to feel." 

"Okay. So if it's not a quest for true love then what is making you act like this? Oh. Oh! It's the adrenaline rush, right? Hormones? You like totally get off on this." 

"Traditionally that is the point of the whole exercise, yes." 

"Okay. Okay! But Jim, _fifteen_ different women in the last six months? That's... that's wrong." 

... 

"Don't arch your eyebrows at me like that. It is and you know it." 

"What is it with you and my personal life?" 

"Hey, I'm just asking you a question. _Traditional_ rules of male bonding state that buddies can ask each other these questions and smirk knowingly while doing so. We've done it before." 

"We're not doing it now." 

"Why not?" 

"Because I'm late." 

"Excuses, excuses..." 

"Christ. Look. If my dates have a problem with me, they take it up with me. Why are you in my face?" 

"I don't know!" 

... 

... 

(so softly) 

"Blair?" 

... 

... 

"Blair," 

"I don't _know_." 

... 

... 

"I don't know, okay? Okay. Okay. I got it. Culturally you're a stud. You're counting coup in the most primitive and globally recognized fashion. Maybe you're threatening my alpha male status. Maybe that's it. Yeah." 

... 

"Jim." 

... 

... 

(hand on arm, gripping, biting into flesh, _wanting_ ) 

"... _Jim_. A...aren't you late or something?" 

... 

(mouth lowering, stalling) 

"Jim, why are you still here?" 

(warm, mouth on mouth, warm so warm) 

\-- 

Blair shivered, remembering. 

And now it was too damn cold. 

\-- 

The plane was cold. 

So damn cold. Jim shivered, chilled. Pulled the blanket around himself, not wanting to reach into the overhead for his jacket. Which was still in his bag. Which he hadn't even packed properly, just throwing things in haphazardly, trying to forget the kiss. 

The wrong kiss. 

(The look in Carolyn's eyes as she'd pulled away. The way her voice had sounded this morning, the way she'd stood on the stairs.) 

Jim closed his eyes, shivering. 

He should never have gone there. 

(He should never have stayed.) 

Why had he stayed? 

(No good reason except maybe he couldn't help it then. Not the grip on Blair's arms, not the fingers clutching at the shirt, their touch not the way the man smelled to him, warm and slightly stale and completely desirable.) 

(This was not how it should have happened, but it had, his mouth suddenly opening to enclose Blair's lower lip, already trembling with words. He'd swallowed the words, drank the breath. Felt the sensation hit him in the gut and he'd known, that was when he _knew_ \- breath on breath, a tangible certainty. Mouths moving apart to exhale lightly on each other. Scent and taste and indefinable knowing.) 

(Definable uncertainty.) 

(Breaking apart.) 

Breaking apart, opening his eyes to see someone else's face and open eyes. 

The wrong kiss. Both times. 

He should never have stayed. 

\-- 

He should have kept his mouth shut. 

"Jim," 

And Jim had pulled back, not too easily. Worked his jaw, even harder. The words came out finally. 

"I'll see you later, okay?" 

It hadn't been, but still. Not like Blair could have stopped him then. 

_He should never have let him go._ Not knowing what he did - that they broke Jim once in Paraguay, putting him in a cage four feet high that let in wind, rain and dappled sunlight. That it wasn't the cracked ribs or the heat or even the occasional draughts of water after parching days that tore at Jim, but the wild _parutha_ flowers that smelled like jasmine, the fronds that hung near his prison and reminded him of sweetness in the middle of blood and stinking sweat, as his shit congealed and fouled his skin, wrapping one perfect sensation in a morass of pain. 

Jim had nearly killed the men who finally freed him. Luckily only nearly, so they sent him to Peru. But he'd refused to die there and they'd had to send him home. Home, where he met Caroline who he lost along with the baby-that-could-have-been when the reek of iron that suffused the atmosphere below consciousness confirmed for him what she never knew and drove him back into the cage-dreams for sanity. 

Alone in that cocoon he'd been safe for a while and perhaps he'd healed. But when he finally woke, he was alone in the apartment and all the good china had left with her. 

Blair had known all of this when he'd said what he'd said. Jim had told him long before. Not in so many words but in broken phrases whispered into his mouth, their hands clutching for sanity, Jim's body scrabbling for ease from pain. 

A body buffeted all its life by extremes; pleasure/pain both physical and mental. A body capable of communicating on the most intimate level with its environment, taught to finally understand and control its reaction to stimuli: a body that needed to be taught to reach for pleasure instead of pain. 

Ease from pain. 

Now that Blair thought about it, it had all been his fault really, not Jim's. Not Jim... not straight Jim who'd never even touched a woman with disrespect despite all that he'd been taught to do. 

(And what about straight Blair?) 

So he'd been a better teacher than he'd thought. 

He should have never opened his mouth. 

\-- 

If he'd just kept his damn mouth shut... 

So maybe Jim should have been prepared for the Friday he came home more than slightly revved and found Blair waiting up on the couch, without even a book in his hand to excuse him. 

He hadn't said a word. Just shut the door carefully and hadn't taken his jacket off because it was his good one and besides Terry had spilled Chardonnay on it and it would have to be dry-cleaned. 

Blair hadn't even pretended to be doing anything but watching as Jim padded up the stairs to his bedroom, down again to shower, and back up again. Watching and waiting, a hunter's trick. 

Or a voyeur's, Jim had realized, as he took his robe off and prepared to sleep in his boxers. Though after a while he'd gotten out of bed and put on a shirt. Then taken it off and to prove a point, removed the boxers too. 

At 5 am it got chilly so he had to put them on. 

Blair, lacking the hyperactive senses, had slept through the whole thing. Which proved nobody's point. 

Except Blair had been on the couch the next Friday. And the next, and the next... till the morning he'd asked Jim again, in a tone of purest scientific interest, "Is it the adrenaline rush that gets you? Hormones?" 

\-- 

He should have just kept his mouth shut. 

\-- 

He'd never thought of what Blair would be like before - 

(beneath him, open and stretched, whether his eyes would be soft and warm or his breath harsh.) 

-because that would have been wrong, incestuous even, after all he'd taken the boy - 

_man_

(lips warm, breath toothpaste fresh, stubble still soft and slightly abrasive) 

_man_

-into his home, his heart and though they learnt from each other, part of Jim Ellison would never be able to think of Blair as other than young, smaller - 

_untrustworthy_

(the dissertation was fake) 

-so the kiss had been a surprise even to him, pine scented and warm with borrowed heat, the surprisingly tasteless wet of another man's saliva melding with his own. 

The first kiss that had grown into a turning of skin and a fragile opening of mouth, enough to cause an unsuspected but strangely welcome arousal that finally became concentrated on the thumb on the edge of his lips. Blair had nodded, tapping a fingertip against the upper curve of Jim's lips absently. 

"Is there coffee?" 

Which had seemed to be all Blair had to say on the subject. So Jim had taken it as reasonable grounds to reach out and kiss Blair again. Receiving the thumping heartbeat and faint hint of sweat that had told him Blair was in no way as calm as he'd wanted Jim to think. 

Just. A very _good_. Teacher. 

And Jim had learned. 

\-- 

He missed so many things. Teaching. Lecturing. Tutorials. Applying for grants. 

So he missed Jim too. Wasn't like he wasn't used to missing things. Hell, he'd miss the loft too now that he thought about it, though that apartment near Megan's wasn't too bad, he'd checked it out yesterday, it'd fit all his books and there was free parking too... 

He just wished he'd kept his mouth shut. 

He wished Jim had known what to say. 

\-- 

_I love you_

Jim tried the words in his head, slowly at first. 

_I love you. I'm sorry._

_I shouldn't have... run away._

No. Too insincere. 

_I love you. I'm sorry._

_I shouldn't have gone away._

Maybe... louder. He could try louder. 

_I love you. I'm sorry._

(I'm not going to be able to say this twice) 

(But you expect him to?) 

The cab driver tapped him on the shoulder. 

"Sir? This _is_ where you want to go, right?" 

Jim looked up and saw the open window, the shadow moving against the glass. Paid the man and got out, adjusting the bag over his shoulder. 

Right. 

Right. 

This was moving too fast for him. 

(Too slow for Blair?) 

\-- 

Footsteps. Blair felt them under his skin, sentinel hyper, flushed and cold with tea and memories. The last time he'd felt this way was on pot, cognizant of every nerve, every movement of his heart... now synchronized with footsteps on stairs. His heartbeat. Too fast. 

This was moving too fast. He... he didn't have words and that scared him. That he didn't know what to say, and Jim didn't either so what would happen now? 

The key turned in the lock. All happening too fast. 

Blair opened his mouth. 

\-- 

"I love you," Jim said, wanting to say it. It came out not too easily. 

\-- 

"I love you," Jim said. 

Blair closed his mouth. 

\-- 

"I love you," Jim said, wanting for Blair to respond, not for Blair to press his lips together, biting down. Hadn't he heard? _Had_ he heard? 

(I love you. Don't make me say this again. I love you, yes, but don't make me say it again.) 

(fuck that) 

"I love you," Jim said again, needing his reply. "I love you." and it didn't sound cheesy this time either, just firm and _right_ so he repeated it, twice to be certain. Five times all told. That should count for something. 

"This is not a question, Sandburg. I love you. So?" 

And finally, finally, Blair opened his mouth. 

~ End. 

* * *

End Mouth by Spyke: spyke_raven@yahoo.com

Author and story notes above.

  
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